


between the disappearing stars

by koosjunhoe



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Gang AU, Han has a crush on jaehwa, Hidden Feelings, Love Confessions, Original Character(s), and Han doesn't know what to do about that, but Jaehwa is dating hyunjin, leader chan is prevalent you can tell he is my bias, not really sure what to put here other than
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:54:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koosjunhoe/pseuds/koosjunhoe
Summary: “Yah, you’re so stupid sometimes! I’m not here to ask you to check my wound. I got hurt, Jaehwa! I don’t get hurt. It made me… It made me think about the future and realise that I’m not invincible and one day I might get hurt for real! What will I do then? Die knowing that I never told you everything I felt? I could die!”“Don’t talk about you dying,” Jaehwa tells him, turning away to go into her living room.Jisung follows close behind, stopping at the door with both of his hands on either side of the frame. He closes his eyes to try and suppress some of the anger surging through him. “This isn’t about me dying! Why won’t you just listen to what I tell you? What’s wrong about you acknowledging that I… I’m in love with you!"
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Original Female Character(s), Hwang Hyunjin/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 6





	between the disappearing stars

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys thanks for choosing this to read. i had this idea and i'm happy to use it to kickstart my tumblr (again). i wont post anything but writing there, but it will be x you instead of x oc since i know that people still like x you (i just prefer writing x oc, hence why this is here). my tumblr is @maoyukhei, same as my twitter. not sure when this will be posted on there but s o o n.
> 
> anyway stan ateez and keep voting for day6.

Han Jisung had, by all respects, started a weekly routine which he very much liked to stick with. It usually consisted of Monday nights with his housemates Changbin and Felix, Tuesdays eating dinner with everyone else, Wednesdays wherever Chan had instructed him to be, Thursdays he would spend catching up on his own private time, Fridays he would go wherever Minho and Seungmin needed him to be, Saturdays in the company of Woojin and Jeongin, and Sunday was a day purely dedicated to avoiding Hwang Hyunjin with all the power he had. 

It wasn’t as if he _enjoyed_ running from the older boy, doing his best to not open any of his snapchat stories or hear his name mentioned by absolutely anyone. That wasn’t to be mean, that wasn’t a personal attack at Hyunjin, it was a pure reaction given that Jisung had to put up with that asshole since they were younger and he was _sick_ of hearing about everything and anything Hwang Hyunjin.

Maybe that did make him an asshole, but he would rather be an asshole than spend his Sunday doing some friendly fire to make sure that he would not hear the name of his worst nightmare mentioned on _his_ day of rest. 

"He's an asshole," Jisung listens contently, trying to avoid the smile on his face. He agrees with a single nod before he goes back to highlighting the page of the security manual in his hands. "I really hate him, Jisung! He makes my blood boil for how he treats me sometimes. We've been dating for this long and he still thinks that my opinion doesn't matter and he can _forget_ to tell me that he's going to be robbing whatever store this weekend so can't go on the date we've been planning for this long?"

Jisung usually avoids conversations about Hyunjin, but this was the exact kind of conversation he _did_ want to have about the elder. He drops the highlighter, closing the book and shrugging. "You should break up with him."

"I should break up with him?"

"If he's such an asshole, yeah." Jisung finds that his statement was pretty obvious, though harsh. The past few years with Hyunjin means that Jisung is very aware of how much of an asshole Hyunjin can, and will, be to people. He didn't expect him to be an asshole to his girlfriend but... that went in Jisung's favour. "Jaehwa, I mean it, you break up with him and you don't have to deal with him anymore."

Jaehwa sighs as her head drops down to the floor. She lets herself fall forward, body pressed onto the covers of Jisung's bed. He finds some pity left, so pats her head to try and offer some sympathy. She only groans at his touch, looking up to him with wide eyes. "But I can't..."

"Why can't you?" Jisung asks.

"You guys are all his friends," Jaehwa tells him. She sits up again, pushing her dark hair over her shoulders as her eyes fall shut again. She groans and hits both her hands down on Jisung's bed. "It will be awkward. Not so much with you guys here but... what about Minho? I can't ever see Minho again because Hyunjin will just be there and it will be awkward. I can't have food with you guys unless I know beforehand that he won't be around and I... I can't help you guys out any more."

Jisung scoffs at her. "You'll have to get a proper job."

"Yah, you're a part of this whole organised-crime-gang-thing that Chan has going on. You should get a proper job, too." Jisung feels bad for a second, but when he remembers that this whole conversation is about Hyunjin he forgets it again. "Jisung, I don't know what to do anymore. I just want things to go well. I like Hyunjin, he just... isn't what I want sometimes."

When Jaehwa said things like this, Jisung found a flicker of hope left in his soul as to the future that was very much written in the stars. He was still bitter than his school crush ended up dating another one of her friends and he was extra bitter that his school crush was also his best friend. He was, in the simplest terms, at boiling point with the whole never getting over her thing.

He tried. He even somehow kind of admitted to Chan that he had a thing for someone, and Chan likely guessed it was Jaehwa, in the hopes that he could get some advice on how to _annihilate_ a crush he had and go back to living life as someone with no emotions, no cares, and a mean streak when it came to videogames.

His aiming ability in Call of Duty annoyed the hell out of everyone, much to his pleasure.

Jaehwa would always cheer _him_ on rather than Hyunjin, but that was because Hyunjin barely ever played and when he did, he was always the one who died first and made about twenty kills. So Jisung would take it as a win either way. But... he shouldn't think of that.

"Then leave him for what you want," Jisung tells her, unsure of what else to suggest. He picks up the manual again, seeing that Jaehwa has turned back to her phone.

"It's not that easy," Jaehwa reminds him, a line he's heard far too many times. Hyunjin wasn't the best boyfriend, he was starting to realise. "Jisung, if I decide to move all the way to France, will you be mad at me?"

Jisung kisses his teeth. "You're not leaving me to go to France."

"You have Changbin to keep you company. Felix too, even if you guys always fight. We can video chat whenever you want." Jaehwa's expression shows that even if she is joking, a part of her is definitely thinking about fleeing Ansan at the next best opportunity. "I don't want to deal with this anymore. I just want a peaceful life with only _you_ to worry about."

"That's fair, you don't have anything to worry about with _me_."

"I have the most to worry about with you, Han Jisung."

The relationship between Jaehwa and Jisung was... mixed. The pair were inseparable from when they met in school and were stuck next to each other. Somehow, Jaehwa's polite tendencies intrigued Jisung, who, at the time, was disrespectful and only cared about himself. So it was a pretty textbook situation for the wannabe rapper to develop a crush on a transfer student from a school in what he believed to be Mapo-gu, who had long hair, cat likes eyes, and pouty lips that he was sure belonged in a drama.

He was asked by their teacher to show her around, and he had enough charisma to keep her around and secure his status of being the best friend of the girl that _all_ the guys in their class wanted to date. He still didn't know what about him reeled her in, but it was too far along now to question why she always, up until Hyunjin, picked him over everyone else.

"You don't need to worry about me though," Jisung tells her. He decides to give up on the security manual and chucks it to the floor beside his bed. "I know what I'm doing. Plus, Chan literally asks me to do dumb stuff now. He has Changbin helping him on all the big stuff. I'm literally just finding out how Jeongin can turn off a security alarm and giving feedback for five per cent. How can you worry about me for that?"

Jaehwa rolls her eyes. "How'd you get the manual?"

"I took it from behind the counter at the store they're going to?"

"You're _stupid_." Jaehwa chucks her phone down by the manual too and climbs over the bed so she can sit directly next to Jisung, rather than opposite him. He watches her with wide eyes, but lets his arms fall around her when she sits next to him and leans into his shoulder. "Some dumb shit is going to happen to you, Han Jisung, and it's going to hurt me more than you realise."

Jisung's heart thumps a little louder than he wanted it to. "I told you, you don't need to worry about me. I'm fine."

"Just let me care about you, Han Jisung. Or else I will make you regret ever having made friends with me."

"Can't you channel that energy onto Hyunjin?"

Jaehwa looks up to him questioningly. "What do you mean?"

"He's made you mad, so let's go make him mad." Jisung saves himself from a conversation he doesn't want to have by taking it back to the one person he didn't want to talk about. Yet he finds himself eager to share his plan as he sees it all happen in his head. "Let's go egg his car, hmm?"

"Do you want him to actually kill us?" Jaehwa asks, eyes wide as saucers. 

Jisung doesn't reply, mostly because he can see her slowly letting her lips curl into a smile. Yeah, he didn't want to think of Hyunjin, but he certainly wanted to piss Hyunjin off for messing with the girl that _he_ liked first. "He should have thought first about hurting you, shouldn't he?"

❂❂❂

The cashier had a habit of giving questioning looks to Jisung with each carton of eggs that he put on the counter. Unfortunately he always aroused suspicion whether he wanted to or not, usually because he had a baby face that wasn’t well suited with his leather jackets and ripped jeans, and because he spoke informally to just about anyone he came across. 

He was sure that he would be refused service by the seventh carton that’s put down, offering a smile as Jaehwa wraps her arm around Jisung, resting her hand on his upper arm, and leans her head onto his shoulder. The cashier, an older lady who was susceptible to a girl’s charms, changes her demeanour as soon as Jaehwa smiles. “We are baking and cooking for my Jisungie’s brother’s birthday. We are catering for _a lot_ of people.”

 _My Jisungie?_ Jisung is frozen for a moment. Even if he tells himself that it was just a cover for the fact they were buying the needed amount of eggs to throw at someone’s house, he still likes the way that Jaehwa says it. He smiles, though it was nothing like Jaehwa’s, but doesn’t touch her back in case he crossed any boundaries. _He_ wasn’t the one in a… relationship. Even if it wasn’t one right now.

“Ah,” the lady replies, understanding Jaehwa’s reasoning. This part of town was pretty quiet and often people would come in to buy all kinds of things in bulk, eggs were just particularly unusual because they were overpriced at this store. “Enjoy. Happy birthday to your brother.”

“We will,” Jaehwa answers. She picks up the cartons once the lady has scanned them and starts to place them in a bag, to help the lady out. 

She tells them the total is nine dollars something and before Jaehwa can find her purse, Jisung puts a ten dollar bill on the table and picks up the bag, saying his thank yous to the lady and leading Jaehwa out of there. He didn’t want to spend any more time than needed in there, since if anyone ever came looking for them for the egging of Hyunjin’s house, a lady would most definitely remember that mismatched couple from the store who were cooking for Jisungie’s brother’s birthday, with 7 dozen eggs. 

And Hyunjin is so dramatic that he would be the type to call whatever crooked law enforcement he can to make sure no one did it again. 

“Do you feel bad?” Jaehwa asks, climbing into the driver’s seat. Jisung looks at her, confused, but copies her actions and sits in the passenger seat without wasting any time. He watches her with dazed look that likely comes from his mind constantly replaying the whole _touching_ thing. Jisung was _that_ affection deprived that his heart was warmed from such a small gesture. “Like, we aren’t just throwing these at Hyunjin’s place. Minho and Woojin are there, too. You know Woojin will just end up cleaning it.”

Jisung hums softly, turning away when Jaehwa meets his eyes. “I didn’t think about that.”

“What if we just throw it at Hyunjin’s car?” Jaehwa suggests. 

“What about the alarms?” Jisung asks. He knows how sensitive car alarms can be from his experience accidentally setting off Jaehwa’s. Well, that, and every time he would lean on a random car in the street as he waited for Minho or Changbin or whoever, and set it off for just putting too much weight on it. “You want to feel the wrath of Hwang Hyunjin at… eleven thirty pm? Isn’t it just about now he puts on his face mask?”

Jaehwa laughs off Jisung’s comment, shaking her head though concentrating on the drive as she pulls out onto the main road. “He actually does it at ten.”

“Yah! How does someone schedule a time to do face masks. He is crazy. I think he has problems.” 

Jisung was probably so defensive because Hyunjin had nice skin that all the girls would go crazy after. He recalled when Hyunjin transferred into their class in the last year of school and every girl would stare at him like he was some kind of idol.

Jisung was also probably jealous of that because, even though he sat next to Jaehwa right at the back of the class and neither of them paid all that much attention to what was going on, Jaehwa still would look over to Hyunjin with wide eyes and whisper to Jisung that he was the prettiest boy she had ever seen. Jisung would then in turn pout and say that he was pretty, and Jaehwa would shush him because she was busy looking at Hyunjin.

He wasn’t even sure how Jaehwa’s constant staring in classes lead to Hyunjin actually talking to her, then asking her out, then the two of them dating and... Christ, Jisung can't even remember when Hyunjin did actually ask her out. The two of them had been dating forever and Jisung had mushed it all into one big period that was never going to end. Jaehwa would know when they started dating, _obviously._

So Hyunjin wasn't crazy and he didn't have problems, he was just different from Jisung and what Jaehwa was looking for. That was the reason that Jisung had such a detest for Hyunjin. 

Hyunjin was what Jaehwa wanted in a guy. A cute looking, nice skin having, tall, kind of arrogant, really annoying, guy named Hwang Hyunjin who somehow managed to win her heart despite not really giving a shit about anyone but himself. 

Jisung pushes the thought of Hyunjin and Jaehwa to the back of his head as he turns back to Jaehwa and carries on where she didn't respond to him. "Let's just... crack open the eggs all over his car. Don't throw them and we won't set off any alarms."

"No alarms," Jaehwa confirms. They're only a street away from Hyunjin's, since he lived much closer to civilisation than Jisung. His shared house with Minho and Woojin was more of an impulse buy from one of the people up top when they needed a safe house for the trio. Fortunately for Jisung he lived closer to Jaehwa so he never complained about it. He had a longboard to get him around if he needed it. "You think he will know it's us?"

Jisung shakes his head. "Not unless _you_ tell him."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Jisung answers, taking one of the cartons of eggs from the carrier bag. He opens it to inspect the eggs, avoiding contact with Jaehwa. "You just... tell him absolutely anything. From what bitches you had to serve at work, all the way to the colour of your underwear."

Jaehwa kisses her teeth. "You're not dating someone, you don't know _why_ I tell him the colour of my underwear."

"Because you want him to think of you in underwear. I'm _single_ , Jaehwa, not a complete idiot."

"Well..." Jaehwa's voice trails off as she pulls up a little bit of the way down the road from Hyunjin's car. She narrows her eyes at Jisung for having that conversation with her. "You're banned from ever talking to me about that subject again."

Jisung scoffs, tossing an egg at her which she thankfully catches. "You can't ban me."

"Not in the car!" Jaehwa scolds, cradling the egg in her hands. She places it back in the carton then whacks Jisung's shoulder. "Are you forgetting when you and Changbin got milk all over the seats?"

"I knew you would catch it. Don't be so uptight."

Maybe he was acting up because he was _now_ jealous that Hyunjin got to see Jaehwa in her underwear. No, he shouldn't be jealous of that because Hyunjin was her boyfriend and he should be respectable to Her. But _god_ he thinks about that time he was looking over Hyunjin's shoulder and saw one of the snapchats she sent Hyunjin. He thinks about it way too many times. Jisung finds himself disgusting.

He leaves the car without an answer from Jaehwa, though he doesn't think she would have given one anyway. His mind turns to the shiny black car parked a few spaces down from Hyunjin's window, which he insisted on having so he could make sure no one stole his pristine new car that he bought with his revenues last year. His black Audi stuck out like a sore thumb on the street with old cars of all other different makes, most of them far cheaper, but also because Hyunjin put so much pride into that car that it caused everyone problems.

Really, he cared more about that car than Jaehwa, but she wasn't ready to be having that conversation yet.

"Make sure to cover the windscreen," Jisung tells Jaehwa, who is following not too far behind him, as he points to the freshly cleaned glass. 

Jisung places the eggs down on the floor, all of the cartons this is, before opening the top carton and taking one of them out. He breaks the shell with his thumbs, cracking it open and letting the inside drop down onto the glass. Jaehwa follows his actions, picking up an egg and doing the same thing at the top of the glass, so it will smear the entire way down.

He takes some pride in seeing Jaehwa so happy. Hyunjin made her happy, but not as happy as she seemed when she was destroying some property of his. Exhibit A was the very situation; Jaehwa cracked a smile and even laughed when Jisung started to completely cover the windscreen, though she stopped herself by covering her mouth with her hands. Jisung's heart was warmed once again as she turned back to him, mouth covered but eyes showing just how much she was laughing behind her hands. She leans into him, head on his chest as she tries to calm herself down.

It was pretty much the same when they stole his clothes from the gym changing room and watched as Hyunjin ran around the gym asking people _where is that idiot Han Jisung with my clothes! Where is he? I will kill him!_ Jaehwa was kept as an innocent party but Jisung didn't mind because he saw how it brightened her day after Hyunjin admitted that he thought about breaking up with her for a while. When they blamed Chan's flat tyres on Hyunjin being the most aggressive driver, instead of taking the fall for Jisung and Jaehwa taking it in turns to see what they could crush beneath the wheels. In their defence, that was a while ago.

The pair of them do a number of Hyunjin's car though, by the time all 72 eggs are used up, the car is pretty much covered all over in the substances that don't look all that nice. Jisung takes a few glances up to Hyunjin's window to check that no one is watching as Jaehwa takes some pictures to use again in the future. Jisung's senses go into high alert when he sees Hyunjin's bedroom light turn on, and he grabs Jaehwa's arm to pull her with him so they can make an escape in her car.

Jisung thinks they're in the clear when they reach Jaehwa's car, though when Jisung looks back to the window one last time (primarily to send a mocking glance towards Hyunjin's non-existent figure, because _haha Hyunjin, I win)_ , he catches the very boy's eyes staring at him from the open window.

Instead of waiting, he jumps in the car and shouts for Jaehwa to hurry up and go, not without rolling down the window to hear Hyunjin screaming at him. "Yah! What have you done to my car! Han Jisung! You are dead!"

❂❂❂

“How do I look?” Jaehwa asks, opening the curtain to the dressing room she had hidden herself in for the past ten minutes. She turns to the side, lifting one of her legs behind her to show off the clothes she had picked up, directing a peace sign at Jisung. “It looks cute, right?”

Jisung hums. “Yeah, it’s alright.”

He was never really the best with fashion, so he wasn't sure why Jaehwa (always) asked him to come along and help her pick out an outfit for this thing she had with work. Though he appreciated the gesture, and he liked spending time with her, there was also a part of him that was annoyed because he realised that she was likely taking Hyunjin with her tonight (since he, as always, apologised) and she had dragged him out of here without any consideration for her feelings. 

Jisung did, however, know enough about clothes to know that Jaehwa did look cute. She had heeled white leather boots on, hemmed about a quarter of the way up her calf. She’d picked up some pastel pink straight leg pants and a white jumper without any sleeves. His mind drifts off to an alternate universe where he and Jaehwa were sat together on a date, talking about god knows what, and there were people around commenting how endearing they were as a couple.

Well, at first they said that. Their words turned into questions about why the two of them; the pretty girl with a face of an angel from Seoul and the boy who wasn't interested in anything other than the easiest way to make money in the shortest amount of time. They wondered why she ever settled for him. She was so pretty, her hair was perfectly straight and her skin was just like glass. He, on the other hand, had the poorly tamed mess of hair that he would never let Changbin bleach again, and dressed like he _wanted_ to be one of those rappers like Zico but never actually made it that far. He looked like her younger brother at best. 

“--I just think that maybe he won’t really understand the relevance of the pink?” Jaehwa’s voice pulls Jisung from his thoughts as he pushes away the underlying nastiness from the voices he was making up. She looks to him expecting an answer. “Hyunjin won’t understand, will he?”

Jisung stares at her wide eyed for a moment, before he nods slowly. “He is a bit slow, but I’m sure he will get it in the end.”

“You get it though, right?” Jaehwa asks. 

“I mean, yeah,” Jisung tells her, smiling a little as he tries to stall her. He has no idea what she is talking about, since he zoned out halfway through her talking before. He tries to remember anything she said to him. The work thing wasn’t anything to do with it. There was something else. _Think Jisung, think._ She mentioned something to do with the moon before. Nope, it’s not coming to him any time soon. “But that’s cause you told me.”

Jaehwa hums, watching Jisung for a moment before she turns around and looks through some of the other tops she picked out. Jisung looks around the room, eyes darting from each interesting detail as he tries to make himself a little less out of place. Sure, he was allowed to be in there, but there was something telling him that a few people didn’t want him there. There are two older ladies who are chatting, both with a strong dialect, and they keep giving him glances from across the room. Even a sales assistant gave him the side eye earlier. Did they think he was going to steal something? He’s not _that_ bad. 

“I don’t even know if I should go,” Jaehwa states, turning back to Jisung. She sits on the stall in the changing room and sighs, resting her chin on her hand, elbow on her knees. “You know what Hyunjin is like when there’s people around.”

“Overdramatic, inconsiderate, loud, annoying, an all around asshole that causes nothing but problems. That’s an easy one.”

Jaehwa finds some amusement in Jisung’s words, though unsurprisingly comes to the defence of her boyfriend, as always. “He’s not _that_ bad. I was going to say that he doesn’t like being around a lot of people. He always worries that… I don’t know, someone will recognise him.”

“His self importance is pointless. We’re not known enough to be recognised.” His statement is probably already contradicted considering that no matter where Jisung went, he always found the security cameras and made sure that the only time he would appear on them was when _he_ wanted to. That was likely a lesson from one of his hyungs that he accidentally kept with him. “Hyunjin thinks he’s this bad ass, but he’s not.”

“Funny, he says the same about you.”

“He does?”

"He told me that you were getting a bit of a big head about everything," Jaehwa tells him, nodding. She snaps a picture of herself in the mirror. She turns it around and gets a selca with Jisung in the back, pouting because of what Hyunjin had said. "Jisungie, you look cute!"

He frowns at her words. "Why are you calling me that?"

"Calling you what?"

" _Jisungie_." He pulls the hood of his coat over his head and sits back further into the chair. "I told you to call me Han."

Jaehwa rolls her eyes as she pulls the curtain shut to the dressing room. Jisung only complains because he doesn't like the warm feeling in his chest he always tries so hard to get rid of when it comes to her. "I can't call you Han. We're too close for that. Do you not like Jisungie?"

"No I do, it's just..." 

Jisung is stopped by his phone vibrating in his lap and he can only frown upon catching sight of a name he didn't expect to see call him. He rolls his eyes, answering the call and pressing his phone to his ear. "Yes, Hyunjin?"

"That's rude," Hyunjin says. Jisung is concerned by tone in Hyunjin's voice. He usually sounds like he has a stick up his ass but not in _this_ way. "Is Jaehwa with you? She's not answering my calls."

Jisung hums. "She's getting an outfit for tonight."

"Tonight?" Hyunjin questions. Jaehwa pulls back the curtain with her brows slightly furrowed as to who Jisung is talking with. She shows him a thumbs up and he nods. "Oh--yeah. Tonight. Why are you with her?"

"Because you were busy."

Jisung hears Hyunjin breathe a little harsh and knows that he's pissed at that. There was something about how Hyunjin got worked up with how close Jaehwa and Jisung was that made Jisung feel especially enlightened. 

He shows the screen to Jaehwa and she rolls her eyes before going back into the changing room. Jisung still hasn't heard Hyunjin reply, so does it for him. "Is there something you need, Hyunjin?"

"I wanted to know where _my_ girlfriend was," Hyunjin says. His bitterness is probably still a result of the car incident. Jisung battles a smile at his frustrations. "But _you_ already knew. It's fine. Just a reminder that we need to meet up to discuss that job Chan wants us to do. I'll text you when is best for me."

As usual, there's no goodbye from Hyunjin and Jisung is left wondering why he ever agreed to work with his worst nightmare, even just to please Chan and convince him that he was better than the others. Jisung's phone is bundled back in his pocket and he's left wondering just how jealous he really does make Hyunjin. 

Jaehwa had never brought it up before, though she wouldn't. He could probably get something out of Minho if he tried hard enough, or if he spent enough time with Woojin. The oldest would just start to gossip like there was no tomorrow. 

He would find out just how much of a burden he was to Hwang Hyunjin - hopefully it was equal to how much grief Hyunjin caused Jisung.

❂❂❂

There's a tension in the air that Jisung can't really avoid, especially since Hyunjin won't sit next to him or even acknowledge his existence. That was likely because of the car incident a week or so ago, which Jisung refused to apologise for on the grounds that Hyunjin upset Jaehwa and as her best friend, Jisung had to defend her. He did also say Jaehwa had nothing to do with it, and Hyunjin believed that without a second word. Dumbass. Hyunjin just hated Jisung with a passion but was too worried what Chan would say if he actually admited to it.

Hyunjin and Jaehwa made up a few days after the car incident, though. Jaehwa had told Jisung that night and explained that Hyunjin apologised for speaking to her like he did and promised not to do it again, not that Jisung believed his apology was genuine in the slightest. It was a kind of... trophy girlfriend thing that Hyunjin had going on. He was the only one of them all that had a girlfriend at the moment; he was the only one who dated anyone that everyone had agreed with attractive (even Jae and Younghyun had made off handed comments that Jaehwa was pretty and Hyunjin was lucky to be dating her).

So he kept her around for the clout, effectively. At least, Jisung saw it that way. Hyunjin may have been loyal, he may have ignored advances from other girls and he was a supportive boyfriend when Jaehwa needed him to be, but Jisung would never accept the act that of all people, Hwang Hyunjin would be a better boyfriend than he would.

No, Jisung would be the perfect boyfriend. He would... do everything he needed to do, he would do more than that too. He would make sure Jaehwa was always happy and never argue with her and... 

He doesn't know how to be the perfect boyfriend.

Sure, Jisung had a girlfriend a while ago. Just after they finished school he dated a girl from their class and she asked him to be her boyfriend, so he accepted thinking that it wouldn't be that hard. They were together for about a month. Jisung broke up with her because no matter what they did together, he either imagined it was Jaehwa and felt guilty afterward, or he felt guilty and stopped anything from going on.

The only one he knew that would be the perfect boyfriend would be Chan, probably. Chan was a box full of unlimited knowledge and that boy most definitely knew _exactly_ what to do when it came to dating. 

"I think it would be best to head in through the back door," Hyunjin states, stopping his pacing beside the chair that Jisung had taken. He points to the blueprints, given to them earlier by Minho, and trails it across the paper and to the highway that stretched across behind the store. "Easy entrance and exit. You go in, grab what you can, make a break for it and you'll get picked up over the fence. _If_ you can jump it."

Jisung scoffs at Hyunjin's comment. "I can jump it, I'm not Changbin."

"You're still tiny." Hyunjin huffs to himself as he sits in the chair opposite to Jisung and points at the side entrance to the store. "You can always go in there and try to make something of an exit before the police arrive. Then just make a break for the car and it will be on the other side of the buildings, here."

"How long for the police to arrive?" Jisung questions, trying to work out how far the police station is from the store.

Hyunjin shrugs. "From when the alarm is triggered... I don't know. Two minutes? With these old stores it's never that quick."

"You don't know for sure?" Jisung curses Chan for sticking him with Hyunjin on this one. Considering that they were both front runners and neither liked recon, it was a pretty shitty match. Unfortunately it was either Hyunjin or Woojin, and between the two, Hyunjin still would have done a better job than Woojin at making sure Jisung didn't get arrested. Woojin had put all of his perk points in converting objects to money for the best price. "Should I do a test run to see?"

"Nah. It will just make them weary. Trust me, it takes a while. You just have to have someone who knows how to drive quickly."

Jisung curses Hyunjin this time. "Okay, so who is that?"

"Yugyeom is busy. So is Dowoon." Hyunjin sour look shows that he hates organising and that next time all the behind the scenes work would be put with Jisung. "Jaehwa's free, though."

"Jaehwa?" Jisung questions.

"Yeah. She said she'd do it. Fifteen per cent cut. Not bad if you ask me."

Jisung bites down his back teeth at Hyunjin's words. Was he serious? Hyunjin very rarely makes jokes so it was likely he was serious but... He must have not been thinking. "Really? Jaehwa? For fifteen per cent?"

"The only other option is I do it myself. But I banned you from my car given that you covered it with eggs over nothing," Hyunjin tells him. He picks up his mug of strawberry and cucumber tea, sipping it slowly. "So you call Jaehwa and she'll get you out of there with whatever you're able to get. It won't be that much. Enough to make a profit on the headaches this has caused me. I don't know why Chan is so insistent on hitting small places when we could just take down that big jewellery store in town if we _all_ combined our talents."

"You know that Chan is just listening to what they tell him up... Yah! Don't you take me away from what I was saying before Hwang Hyunjin. You're not using Jaehwa as the driver."

Hyunjin remains unphased. "I'm not?"

"No," Jisung tells him. He rolls up the blueprints and shoves them in his rucksack. "Jaehwa isn't helping us out because it's dangerous and given how unsure of everything you are, I won't be the one to take responsibility if she gets hurt."

"I will take responsibility, and she won't get hurt. Why are you being such a dick about this? She helps me all the time."

"I don't care if she helps you, she's not helping _me_."

Jisung realises his words may have seemed harsh. He isn't sure how to explain to Jaehwa's boyfriend that he cares too much about Jaehwa to see her get hurt over something this stupid. God it would _kill_ Jisung to ever see her like he saw Minho that one time, bullet wound in his thigh from some rival who found Minho on the street and decided to enact some revenge. He didn't want to see her in pain.

It even angers him that Hyunjin takes her to help out. Jisung wasn't stupid, he knew Jaehwa helped out when she could because all the Chan, Woojin, all the others, they were as much of a friend to her as they were to Jisung. He realised that Hyunjin was utilising her when Jaehwa briefly mentioned that she was storing some stuff Hyunjin stole until it was time for Woojin to sell it on.

"She's not helping me because I can't risk her," Jisung continues, noticing Hyunjin's questioning stare. He nods in agreement with his own words before he continues. "You know what Chan is like about getting people hurt. I'll... do something wrong like I always do and she will get hurt instead of me, like people always do."

Hyunjin hums. "That's why we all avoid actually going into buildings _with_ you."

"What?"

"Last time someone walked into a store with you, Jeongin almost got kidnapped," Hyunjin states, "don't take it so personally, Han. No one wants to work with Felix because he can't aim, no one wants to work with Changbin because he's blind. No one wants to work with you because you talk too loud. That's why I take turns with each of you."

Hyunjin's self entitlement gives rise to Jisung's anger, but he suppresses it to get back to his point. "Hwang Hyunjin, find me another driver because I'm not working with Jaehwa on this. Just get me a car and I will drive myself, but she's not helping out."

Jisung could have argued some more, but he's really not in the mood for it. He picks up his bag, leaving Hyunjin to watch him as he stalks out of the kitchen and to the door, calling goodbye to Seungmin and Woojin who were upstairs sorting out some money. He doesn't hear their replies as he shuts the door behind him and walks as quickly as he can to get home before anyone can contact him.

_What a fucking dick!_

Hyunjin never fails to cause problems for Jisung. Now he can remember _exactly_ when Jaehwa and Hyunjin started dating. It was after they finished their last exam and Hyunjin brought a bouquet of red roses to Jaehwa in front of their entire class, _right_ in the middle of when Jisung was talking to her. Jisung was left to watch, with a fallen expression and defeat in his eyes, Hyunjin profess that he liked Jaehwa and would like to go out with her. Two weeks later they were officially boyfriend and girlfriend. A year or so later and they're still together.

_For what, Hwang Hyunjin? To get her injured because you can't plan anything?_

Jisung lets out his anger on a wheely bin outside a house on his way home, kicking it over and spilling the contents everywhere, which wasn't as bad as the sound alerting everyone in the house that someone was outside. 

Jisung stared at the bin with a shocked expression, mumbling to himself that he was stupid. He looked up to the window of the house the bin belonged to, only to be more surprised by an elderly man looking straight at him with the wrath only the eldery can possess. Something that Park Sungjin had tapped into quite well too. As soon he hears shouting, he bolts in the direction of his house and prays no one followed him because all he wanted to do was lock himself in his room, turn all the lights off and scream into his pillow as loud as he could.

❂❂❂

His watch’s vibrating, phone’s ringtone slowly getting louder, wakes Jisung up from the sleep he had forced upon himself when he got home. He had locked his door, buried himself under the covers and ignored everything that occurred in the world around him. Though he’s left in the embrace of slumber, darkness preventing him from properly adjusting to his surroundings, when he reads Jaehwa’s name on his phone he shakes his head to bring some life back into him. 

“Hello?” Jisung says as he answers the call, voice still groggy. He clears his throat before he carries on. “You okay?”

Jaehwa hums in response to his question, and it doesn’t take too long for Jisung to realise that she’s not happy. “Hyunjin tells me you want me off of the job next week.”

Jisung breathes out slowly, irritated at the name she mentions. He should have realised that Hyunjin wouldn’t have given a proper explanation of the reasons for not wanting Jaehwa to help out. He twisted it, in a way that only Hyunjin could, into Jisung kicking Jaehwa out for absolutely no reason. He should have guessed. It was so _typical_ of Hyunjin that this was a replica of when Jisung told Hyunjin not to pick Jeongin as a getaway driver because he didn’t have a license yet (and therefore did not want Jeongin to get into any unnecessary trouble), and Hyunjin told everyone that Jisung thought Jeongin couldn’t drive well. 

“It’s not safe,” Jisung tells her, “I don’t want to put you in a situation where you could get hurt.”

“Nothing you do is safe, Jisung! Yet you do it. Why don’t you want me to help? I help Hyunjin out all the time, and Minho and everyone else who needs it. Why do you hate me working with you?”

Jisung is quick to pick up on the hurt in her voice, and he curses himself for not being the one to tell her. He pauses, though realises soon that his silence only made Jaehwa feel worse. “I don’t hate you working with me, I just--”

“You don’t think I’m good enough to work with you?” Jaehwa questions. He doesn’t answer, unsure of what to say. “You think that if I do work with you, I will mess it up and you will get hurt? You won’t be Han, the one who _never_ gets hurt, if I work with you and get you hurt?”

“It’s not that!”

“Then what is it?”

“I told you, I don’t want you to get hurt.” Jisung tries to be firm but ends up sounding like an asshole. He feels bad at the lack of respect in his sentence, and knows that he can’t convince Jaehwa otherwise now. “You know that people always try to shoot the drivers? That every time Felix has been the driver he’s had to wear a vest? Did Hyunjin give you a vest? Hmm? He doesn’t think that far ahead and I don’t want you to have to wear a vest! I don’t want you to risk your safety.”

Jaehwa is quiet for a moment. Jisung listens for her breathing but he can’t even hear that. He finds himself annoyed at the TV being at such a high volume in the living room and he pulls a face through the wall at Felix for his hearing problems. He’s not sure if Jaehwa is even on the phone anymore. He does check, then checks again after a few more moments. 

It’s not as if he wants to hurt her feelings. Was his reasoning too harsh? Was it wrong not to want someone you love to get hurt?

“It hurts me, Jisung,” Jaehwa says, voice catching him off guard. Jisung frowns, running his hands through his hair, scratching near to his crown. “I know you mean well but… Jisung, you risk your life every time you leave the house. I want to make sure you’re okay, too.”

“I don’t need to be protected--”

Jisung can’t finish his sentence. Jaehwa ends the call before he can tell her what he wanted and she leaves him staring at his phone screen, wondering how he makes things better. Jaehwa never holds grudges, but she never forget what happens. If she understood then that was good but he isn’t convinced that she _really_ understands that he would never forgive himself if she got hurt because of something he did.

He throws himself back down in his bed, staring up at the dark ceiling above him. One frustrated sigh and groan later, he has his eyes shut and he’s trying to get some rest while he still can. Things were never easy for him. _Jaehwa_ was never an easy topic for him.

❂❂❂

The static of the earpiece drives Jisung insane, sometimes. He can barely concentrate as he hears the white noise over and over, crippling him from being able to concentrate on what he was doing. No matter how he much he complained, no one ever gave him a new one and he was starting to think that he would spend his entire career working with an earpiece that barely even produced noise anymore. 

Alas, he has to concentrate on what he's doing. This job was stupid enough, poorly planned enough to cause him to lose his unharmed and uncaught streak. His mind turns to the cameras in the corner as he disables the wires under the counter, clipping each of them in the order Hyunjin had told him to. He's honestly not sure if Hyunjin even researched this. Hyunjin could have easily given him random colours and hoped for the best. 

Placing what little trust he has left in Hyunjin, Jisung cuts the last wire and looks up to see the red flashing light on the camera fade to darkness. He sighs, knowing that at the very least he was off-camera now. The owners of this store must have been stupid. How could they not point a camera at the door of all places?

He forgets the queries he has and moves towards the computer that unlocks the automated system, the poor excuse for a safe this place has. He cracks his knuckles before typing in everything Hyunjin told him to. However much he bashed Hyunjin before, he had to give him some credit - the recon so far was spot on. Maybe he would be right about the police after all. 

It takes a few moments for the system to start running, but at the very least it gives Jisung the opportunity to prepare for what is to come. He knows there isn't much inside the safe, give or take in the mid ten thousands from what Hyunjin says. It's far less than what Chan has taken everyone else to work on. He really has no idea why they have such a tiny job like this when Chan could have used all available hands but... it doesn't matter. Chan is the decision-maker for a reason.

A few clicks here and there, giving remote access to Hyunjin's throwaway laptop elsewhere accompanied by Hyunjin telling Jisung that he thinks that he did a pretty good job organising this, and his time is suddenly set. Hyunjin gives him three minutes from when he presses enter to get into the safe, grab whatever he could, take the hard drive from the computer, then get away from the place as soon as he could.

"Okay, hold on." Jisung can hear Hyunjin typing quickly, and he waits in place by the entrance to the safe ready to move. He adjusts the gloves he's wearing, stretching his fingers as he waits for Hyunjin's command. "I've just got to... These systems are so fucking old. Wait... ah, finally. Time, Jisung."

Jisung pulls open the safe door, not caring for the rattle it makes as it hits the wall from being forced open so quickly. He makes a break for the boxes on the back table, resisting the urge to grab the money in the corner and instead heading for the one thing Woojin always encouraged them to take.

He first of all finds a box with various bits of gold inside, which is thrown straight in his duffle bag and covered within seconds by various other pouches that have different values. He knows it isn't much but carries on piling in the jewellery anyway, not stopping until he's cleared the entire shelf.

Hyunjin gives him a two minute warning, which he's grateful for. He was ahead of time. Jisung grabs the hard drive, not caring for what wires he rips out in the process, and chucks it in the bag too. He zips up the bag, slinging it over his shoulder as he runs for the door and out into the car park that was empty due to it being early morning.

Jisung laughs to himself when he realises that he's made it out, though he's caught off guard by the sound of sirens that sound in the distance. Panic makes his blood run cold when he hears them coming closer to his location. _Oh fuck you, Hyunjin_. Those systems don't give you that long to get out. Hyunjin was convinced it took two minutes of inactivity to alert the police who would take a minute to arrive in the end.

Jisung runs for the highway at the back of the store like originally planned, checking over his shoulder a few times to see if anyone was following him. He can't see anyone, it's practically a ghost town, but he can see the lights flashing in the windows of other stores. He forces himself to run faster, jumping the fence that blocks him from the highway without any problems that Hyunjin thought there might have been.

The static starts to annoy him, so he pulls the earpiece from his ear and shoves it into his pocket so he can concentrate on what he's doing again. He heads down the grass bank of the highway, looking for a car that Hyunjin had organised to come get him. There's no one parked, there's no one who _looks_ like they were there to pick him up.

Hyunjin was a fucking asshole and didn't organise anyone? He would have done it out of spite. Jisung clenches his jaw as he approaches an intersection and still doesn't see anyone. He's going to kill Hyunjin. He's going to make sure that Hyunjin goes to prison for this, that fucking asshole left him to get caught and didn't even care to tell him?

Jisung could have planned if he knew there wouldn't be a car. He could have found a route to escape any cops on his trail but there was nothing he could recall on a map and he wasn't even sure where the nearest train line was. 

_Think, Jisung, think._

He's not sure what Chan would do, or Changbin or Felix or anyone. His best bet is stealing a car but anyone could bring up his face in court and he would have been caught. He only has a hat and facemask on. He could still be identified by his eyes and... _This is a complete mess!_

He stops a few metres from the intersection, looking around for another exit out of here. He can hear the police, they're on the other side of the fence and they'd come looking for someone on this side soon. He could run across the road, but he isn't likely to get that far because it's four am and there are cars still around, trying to get into Seoul before rush hour.

Jisung's mind falters when he realises the situation he's been put in. He pulls the bag from his shoulder, prepared to chuck it and run when he next could. He's so close to doing it, too, but the sound of tyres screeching on the tarmac catches his attention. 

He might not have wanted to see Jaehwa's face here, but he's beyond relieved when she looks him straight in the eyes and sees his panic before he can register her own.

❂❂❂

To say the ride home was uncomfortable would have been the understatement of the year. Well, a good contender with Jisung talking about his feelings for Jaehwa or anything related to her to anyone _but_ himself. He only looks forward, staring at the road ahead and ignoring the awkward silence between the two of them. 

Yes, they both argued a lot. They had personalities that clashed occasionally, both of them strong willed and loving the thought of being right. _Yes_ , they often sat together and didn’t talk, primarily when they were at school together and studying for exams. But no, before this Jisung had not felt the same atmosphere. He wondered what was going through Jaehwa’s head as she gripped the steering wheel tighter and chose to stay silent rather than just tell him what was on her mind. 

He occasionally looked over to her, wishing to break the tension with a joke or something stupid like he usually did. That was pretty much impossible, given that he wasn’t sure how mad at him she was in reality. Jaehwa always had that initial anger that soon boiled over and then she was fine. Given that she didn’t once look in his direction, he would assume that she was still boiling.

But it gives Jisung a chance to think. 

The quiet music in the background, likely from their shared spotify that Jaehwa always hogged, gives him some emotion aside from worry. It’s a new song from an OST, at least that’s what his first guess would be given the drama sounding lyrics and piano playing too. It’s probably the lyrics that make him _think_ , actually. 

_I’ll be right here. I don’t wanna hide anymore. I love you._

Jisung is convinced that he tuned in at just the right time to hear exactly what he needed to hear. A schoolboy crush on his best friend that turned into an actual crush that he was never able to shake or replace or downright forget about because no matter what he did, no matter what _she_ did, he would always be in love with her. 

That’s what hurt the most; Jaehwa could break his heart over and over, date everyone of his friends, confess her love to a billion other people, and Jisung would never be able to erase her name that was tattooed a million times over his heart. 

“I’m sorry,” Jisung tells her, his voice a touch shaky as he sounds over the music. He waits for Jaehwa to look over to him but she concentrates on the road, only clenching her jaw tighter when she realises he’s looking at her. “You saved my ass from getting caught, and I’m sorry for not wanting you to help out in the first place.”

Jaehwa’s expression softens. She doesn’t grace him with eye contact but instead answers him as he expected. “I don’t believe that you didn’t want me to go just because you were worried I would get hurt.”

“Why don’t you believe me?” Jisung asks. 

“Because it’s stupid, Jisung. Why would it matter to you if I get hurt?” Jaehwa’s questions send his mind into overdrive. Was he really that unclear? If Changbin could pick up on his crush then _anyone_ could tell. Maybe Jaehwa is blind. Or, she’s ignoring it on purpose. “I get that it causes you problems, but so what if I got shot? Isn’t it more important that you actually have a driver show up here and make sure the police don’t arrest you over, what, four thousand worth of jewellery?”

Jisung glances down to the bag at his feet. Should he just say it? Tell her what’s on his mind and not hide it anymore? He should. Chan would tell him to be honest. Maybe a different situation but in the basic terms, everything is the same. Jisung avoids her eye contact as he decides to tell her. “I don’t want you to get shot for four thousand.”

“What?”

“Four thousand is jack shit,” Jisung tells her. He notices they are approaching his street and groans throwing his head back against the seat. “I don’t want you to get shot over four thousand. You’re more important to me.”

Jaehwa doesn’t answer him as she pulls onto the drive outside Jisung’s home. He can see Felix’s bike so knows it’s best to keep this in the car. He doesn't move, so Jaehwa doesn’t either. Instead she questions him still. “I get it, yeah, we’re friends. But so is everyone else and you don’t care about them. You didn’t care when Hyunjin got that other girl to drive so it’s not that. What about _me_ is it Jisung?”

“You’re my closest friend and I--”

“Nope.”

“You won’t even let me finish?” Jisung narrows his eyes at Jaehwa, turning his body to face her. She doesn’t change her demeanour, so he knows he has to do _something_. “What do you want me to say?”

Jaehwa shrugs. “Just be honest with me. Like you were when you told me the reason I couldn’t come to your house when we were younger was because you didn’t want your friends to think you hung out with _losers like me_.”

For the record, Jisung said that because he was scared he would say something about that crush he had and Jaehwa rejected him, sending him into the depths of hell for the rest of his time at school with her. That, and he wasn’t sure how to kiss someone at the time and wanted to practice in case that should ever come about. 

“I’m being honest about it now, it’s nothing to do with the way you act or how good you are at driving or even that I’m worried you will cause me harm and break my title. I don’t care about that, I care that you could get hurt doing something stupid that I set up.”

“Hyunjin set this up, _liar_.”

“Hyunjin set it up with _me_.” Jisung pushes his hair back curling his fingers into it as he shuts his eyes and breathes out in frustration. “This was a stupid plan from the start and it should never have gone ahead. It was my fault because I didn’t check the time it takes for police to arrive and I didn’t have a back up plan in place and no matter what you say, you would have gotten hurt if you would have been in on the plan too.”

Jaehwa shakes her head slowly, still unable to accept his words. “I went ahead with the plan and I’m fine, so it wasn’t stupid. I just want a reason, Jisung, it’s not rocket science! Just tell me why you wanted me out?”

“I’m worried about you!”

“But why? Why do you worry so much?”

“Because I like you, okay!” Jisung looks at Jaehwa with an emotion he can’t describe. His hands are shaking a little, though he’s not sure whether it’s because he’s angry that she doesn’t believe him, or that he just confessed to her by accident and now she’s staring at him wide eyed. “I like you and I have done for a while and I’m not sure what else I can tell you because I don’t want to see you get hurt over four thousand. So believe me when I tell you that I care about you because I don’t care about anyone more than you.”

They are both stuck staring at one another for a moment, Jisung’s chest heaving a little whereas Jaehwa barely even breathes. He didn’t expect it to be like that. He didn’t expect her to be so quiet. He senses the rejection coming before she says a word, so he does what his instincts tell him to do; flee.

Jisung grabs his bag and leaves the car without another word. He doesn’t look back to her, instead going straight inside and throwing the bag of jewellery down by the pile of laundry in the kitchen. He stands in the kitchen for a moment, staring down at the bag with anger running through his veins. He really wasn’t going to risk Jaehwa’s safety for any money that was offered to him. Why didn’t she understand that? It was as simple as 1-1=0. 

He tries not to think about Jaehwa as he covers the bag with some of the clothes that are scattered, making sure it was hidden from anyone who came prying. He decides that he would forget as much as he can and direct his anger at either Changbin or Felix for leaving the front door unlocked. His worries for Jaehwa can wait until he was ready to accept his rejection.

❂❂❂

"Are you nervous, Jisung?"

Felix's question catches the very boy off guard, his body freezing as he turns. Jisung wonders what set off his questioning. He had been sitting still and staring out the window, waiting for Changbin to appear from the building. "Why?"

"Cause you look like you want to leave," Felix tells him, shrugging, "I would think this was your first time on the job, but I know it's not. So I've come to the conclusion that you must be nervous."

"I'm not."

Felix hums in agreement, looking down to his phone. Jisung watches Felix for a while, trying to work out what was going through his mind. He really had no idea how Felix came to the conclusion that he was nervous, but if Felix could notice it then so could anyone. "It's not an issue if you are. I know Changbin is kinda... clumsy sometimes."

"He's not that clumsy and I'm not nervous _at all_ ," Jisung states, rolling his eyes. He leans back into his seat as he faces the direction of the building again. "I literally did that job with Hyunjin three days ago. I was the one inside then. I do this so many times I could still get it done with my eyes closed."

"That's the kind of thing that stops your no injury streak."

Jisung only shakes his head. He adjusts his position so he can see clearly inside the building and manages to spot Changbin leant against a bench on the inside as he watches the people inside the store. "It was a figure of speech."

"Can you stop arguing," Changbin's voice sounds through the speaker, "this is the reason we are never told to do anything together."

"He started it," Jisung says, a glare thrown in Felix's direction.

In all truth, they are never put together. Usually the trio are split up to avoid any problems, like an argument that started over Felix saying something stupid that Jisung took seriously and Changbin joined in on. Hyunjin liked to refer to them as dumb, dumber, and dumbest, which was a bit unfair to the three of them.

Of course, Felix and Jisung always forced the ‘dumbest’ nickname onto Changbin which was usually disputed by Chan who said that Changbin, despite his general lack of common sense, was pretty good as threatening people due to his nature. Changbin had kept a thing or two from his emo stage and was now one of the biggest earners out of all of them. Not that anyone actually went off physical earnings. Poor Woojin wouldn’t have been very good if they went off that. 

Yet still, Chan had asked the three of them to get together and plan a heist on a small bank in town. Well, their heist was a distraction. Chan was a bit of a genius and managed to take a portion of one of Jeongin’s favourite video games and apply it to real life, despite everything against their odds and most police officers fully prepared to stop any kind of attack like this. 

Yes, it was _the big one_ from GTA V. No, it wouldn’t result in over thirty million in profit. 

But it would mean that they could have a small break from doing smaller jobs elsewhere, which everyone apart from Jisung was looking forward to. 

He had smothered himself in work, making sure that every moment of every day he was doing _something_ so that preoccupied him from thinking about, well, _that_. The whole _I like you_ situation with Jaehwa that he avoided every day he could. He would leave rooms if her name was mentioned and pretend to call someone if he was asked a question about her. 

Jaehwa and everything Jaehwa related was not something he needed right now.

"It doesn't matter who started it," Changbin tells them. Jisung watches as the eldest adjusts his cap and shifts in his seat so that he is sitting sideways. "Seungmin just text me. He said that his dad is in the hospital."

"Oh, damn, really? What happened?"

Jisung rolls his eyes - Felix's attention had gone elsewhere for the moment since he was scrolling through Instagram. "It means they're ready, you fucking idiot."

"Shit, yeah," Felix replies. He pulls up his face mask and grabs the beanie that was kept in the car glove compartment. "We're ready, too."

There's a moment without contact as Felix tucks his light strands of hair under the hat and Jisung starts up the car. Changbin coughs a few times before he gives the code that Chan is ready as well, in the main part of town they were looking to hit.

Seungmin, Jeongin and Dowoon (since he was always happy to help them out where needed) were at family named bank on the West side of the police district. Changbin, Felix and Jisung had taken the Southeast, and Chan, Hyunjin and Minho were hitting the national bank in the Northeast. 

Jeongin and Seungmin were to play fake robbery until the police were called. Woojin was waiting with an inside man to give Changbin and Felix the go-ahead to hit the store at the same time, where a son of a police chief was working. Once the police chief left the precinct (since he had done it each time there was a disturbance at his son's place of work) then Chan would be on his way to getting the cash for the job that Younghyun and Jae had been pestering him about for a while.

They had high expectations but it was self-inflicted. Chan had been trained by Younghyun, Jae, Sungjin, Wonpil, even Dowoon, to be a hybrid mastermind in this field.

So they planned out a heist that was going well so far but only took one misstep to go wrong.

"Police car one has left," Felix says, reading out the test received from Woojin. He throws his phone at Jisung and leaves the car, black jacket covering most of his small frame so he appeared to be a touch scarier. Felix disappears into the store and Jisung stays put, turning up the stereo a little louder so he could have some music in the background. 

It was a shame that he was the driver this time. It gave him more nerves than being on the inside because he knew when the second a police car was here, he was responsible for them getting away from here safely. Where does that take his mind? Straight back to Jaehwa. How she must have felt with him being the one inside. How _she_ must have debated every outcome whilst driving to meet him and how shit scared she must have been for his safety.

Like he was. Except, she didn't believe him. Or she did, she just didn't want to accept it.

Jisung hears Felix's voice through Changbin's mic, the youngest shouting for everyone to stay put. He watches Changbin lock the door, guarding it so that no one else can leave. He looks across the store with a typical Changbin stare, nodding at the chief's son for Felix to target. Which Felix does, and just like planned, the son pulls the distress button under the counter and Woojin's alerting them that the chief is on his way.

It does go well, better than they could have planned on it going given that they were just scapegoats for the main attraction. Jisung forgets anything else on his mind and loses the police cars with an unharmed Changbin and Felix in the back. The car is ditched across town and they are on the bus home, letting old ladies take their seats within twenty minutes.

Jisung celebrates well knowing that Chan would likely have more control than before since he had earned the trust of Jae and Younghyun. Though when he goes to bed that night he hugs his pillow to sleep because the only thing on his mind is what Jaehwa would have done differently, and if she cared that he was out there risking his safety.

Or if she just thought about Hyunjin that way. Which was, by all means, more probable.

❂❂❂

The inevitability of problems between everyone had hit Jisung a little sooner than he expected. His idea was that it would take a few weeks of Jisung having no one to vent to before he turned it all onto Changbin and Felix, who in turn would start on Minho and Seungmin, who then dragged Jeongin into it, who would tell Woojin and Chan about the problems that originated with Jisung. 

Fortunately for Jisung, the inevitable ass-kicking from Chan that he predicted was unlikely to come. Whilst he did start on Changbin and Felix, neither of them had reciprocated his feelings and instead took his attitude as a result of him not talking to Jaehwa for a while. They knew all too well. But they were also likely told by Hyunjin when he saw them and wanted to bitch about Jisung, since he couldn't do it to Jaehwa.

Except, as he learnt from Minho, it was unlikely Hyunjin did any of the bitching.

"He's being a dick," Minho says, sitting down next to Jisung in front of the TV. Chan is sitting across from them on his laptop, headphones on but slightly offset so he can listen to their conversation. Jeongin is watching the TV from the table behind them, and Seungmin has a map of Ansan spread out on the floor between them all. "How am I supposed to live with him for the next few years? I would rather live on the streets. Can I sleep in your room, please?"

Jisung half-heartedly hums. "He can't be that bad. But sure, you're staying on my floor though."

"I don't care, anything to be away from Hyunjin. You know what he said to me this morning? He got mad at me for leaving dishes in the sink from breakfast whilst I got ready. I was letting them soak! He didn't even get mad for Woojin hyung doing the same thing. Just me!"

"You never wash them up, though," Jeongin comments from behind them. It earns a slight laugh from Chan, who nods in agreement.

Minho pouts. "I was going to. He is just... everything is setting him off! Literally, _anything_. I played music a bit too loud yesterday and he screamed at me. It's because of Jaehwa, I bet you anything."

"What did she do?" Seungmin asks, looking up from the map. Jisung tries to act disinterested by following the lines that Seungmin draws over the map, following it from building to building. "I thought they were planning a holiday together, last time I checked?"

Jisung looks up when Seungmin mentions a holiday, his eyes wide. She didn't tell him that. Not that they were exactly on speaking terms. Mostly because of him. Jisung couldn't face her and made that clear each time he declined her calls and ignored her texts. She was starting to realise now. He realises his cover has been blown when Chan gives him the look on intrigue, knowing that Jisung was very much still wishing to be Jaehwa's boyfriend. Jisung regrets ever admitting that to Chan when he was drunk. He shakes his head at Chan and turns back to Minho.

"I haven't seen her since... well, I don't even know. It was around the time that Hyunjin and Felix broke into that pharmacy. You remember?"

"That was two weeks ago," Chan tells them, surprised, "you haven't seen her since that?"

Minho shakes his head. "I don't know what's happened but I usually see her every other day, or say hi to her when she picks up Hyunjin. I don't even see her around anymore. I'm pretty sure they argued and he's taking it out on everyone else."

"Do you know anything about it?" 

Seungmin directs his question to Jisung, who doesn't realise for a moment. The moment of silence is enough to make the other suspicious of his relationship with her, too. " _Uh_ , no... No, I don't know anything."

"Are you sure?" Minho asks. He narrows his eyes at Jisung and cocks his head to the side. "I haven't seen you with Jaehwa either. Are you both okay?"

"How would you know, you don't live with me."

Chan continues his mean streak by stirring a pot that Jisung was _trying_ to empty. "Felix said you haven't seen her, either. Asked me about it a few days ago."

"I've been doing a lot of jobs," Jisung tells them, making sure to catch everyone's eyes at least once. He stops on Minho with a pleading look to let it go. "I thought it was best to stay on the down low and not get anyone else involved."

Jisung's look seems to win some of Minho's heart, the elder always giving into Jisung. They were all convinced that Minho had a soft spot for Jisung, like Chan did for Jeongin and Changbin for Felix. Minho and Jisung had bonded from all the time they spent together scoping out buildings and timing police cars. Jisung would always go to Minho, too, if he couldn't talk to Jaehwa.

He ignores Jeongin mention that he's _worried that something happened to noona_ , and proceeds to ignore Seungmin when he mentions that Jaehwa should just break up with Hyunjin whilst she had the opportunity to so that she could date someone who wasn't such an asshole. Jisung finds some solace in his phone, though locks it again when he sees he has 15 unopened messages from Jaehwa over the past two and a bit weeks.

He bites his tongue as he stares point-blank at the TV. He feels bad, sure. He wants to message her but as soon as he does the reality of _Jisung, you and I can't ever been like that_ will replace all the good memories he has of her like _my Jisungie._ He's not prepared for that. Jisung is sensitive and needs to prepare for something like that to happen to him or he may just lock himself in his room and never leave again.

That seems closer than before, especially when Seungmin bursts a bubble he's been protecting from everyone else this entire time. "Didn't you kick her off a job?"

"Did you?" Minho asks, jumping back onto the conversation. Jisung realises that they all catch onto the real situation when Chan takes off his headphones and turns his attention fully to the conversation. _Fuck you, Seungmin_. Hyunjin obviously mentioned it to others, too. "What did she do?"

Jisung frowns. "Nothing, she didn't do... I told Hyunjin I didn't want her to work with me because I was worried about her getting hurt."

"Yikes," Chan states, "you said that to Hyunjin?"

"And to Jaehwa."

"Doesn't make it any better," Minho tells him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"It sounds like you kicked noona off because you didn't want to work with her because she wasn't good enough." Jeongin confirms that Jisung really was the worst friend to exist. He puts down the pen he's using and gives Jisung a sympathetic smile. "Like... you know she's not going to get hurt as a driver. Why would you be so worried for her safety as a driver? Unless you did plan on taking her inside with you."

Jisung shakes his head, looking back to the TV. All the eyes in the room are on him and he _hates_ it for the first time in a while. "I was genuinely worried she would get hurt. I don't want her to get hurt. What's so wrong with that?"

"You sound like her boyfriend," Seungmin comments.

"You sound like you _want_ to be her boyfriend by showing you care about her more than Hyunjin does," Minho adds, "why don't you treat any of us like that? When have you ever cared for the safety of anyone other than yourself?"

Jisung rolls his eyes at Minho. "Hyunjin barely paid attention to details and the whole job was a sham. I was lucky to get out of there."

"You only got out of there because she showed up anyway."

"And I'm grateful for that." Jisung narrows his eyes at Chan for such a statement. What was he implying? Probably he was implying that nothing went wrong so Jisung was worrying over nothing. _Ah! This is all Chan's fault anyway_. If Jisung didn't listen to Chan when he said to always be honest, this wouldn't be a problem. "Why does no one believe me when I say I was genuinely concerned about Jaehwa's welfare and wanted to make sure that she was okay? I can have feelings, I didn't want to see her get hurt or get arrested or have anything happen over barely any money. Why is that so hard to accept?"

His question is pretty obvious, but everyone is quiet for a moment. Jisung looks around the room to see if anyone is brave enough to actually tell him the reason that he already knows all too well. He thinks he's got away with it, that he will be able to sit at home and play Call of Duty with Changbin (so he can take his anger out, obviously) until Felix kicks them out because he has something to watch.

Jeongin, still learning when it was appropriate to give his very opinionated view of things, is the one that catches him red-handed. "I guess it's weird because noona is dating Hyunjin hyung, not _you_."

❂❂❂

Jisung has never bolted out of his room quicker than he did that morning. One text, along the lines of _Jisung, I need you to stop being your usual self and carry on being caring_ and he was straight off his bed, the quest on Fallout 4 forgotten, as he found a pair of shoes and jacket to get him where he needed to go. 

He even ignores both Changbin in the cloakroom and Felix by the front door when they question his behaviour. Jisung never usually cared that much about anything to run for it, even if it was a few thousand dollars. The look Felix and Changbin give each other, one of confusion and also curiosity, is more than enough for the pair to realise that whatever Jisung is running for, it's far more valuable to him than anything else had ever been. 

He almost gets hit by a few cars on the way there, since he wasn't waiting on traffic lights and decided to just run across the street anyway. He realised that it was easier to explain a trip to the hospital… though that thought process is forgotten when he realises that Jaehwa would probably have been mad at him for getting hurt on the way. Not that he thinks it is actually possible for him to get hurt. As always, danger evades him. 

Though he shows up a few minutes late since someone did get out their car and started shouting at him. This old guy who didn’t know shit about the world and thought it was okay to talk to kids like he did. Jisung started arguing back with the guy, running along some lines of how disrespectful the man was being considering that the _young kids were clearing up his mess_ , until he heard sirens and was reminded that it was almost a certainty that Jaehwa _would_ be mad at him for getting arrested. 

He bangs a few times on Jaehwa’s door, loudly at that, as he catches his breath back and leans on the brick wall beside the door. His breathing begins to steady a little as the door is opened and Jaehwa stands behind it. He looks up from the ground, eyes widening when he sees her with blue tinges under her eyes, pale lips, and pyjamas still on. “Yo, Jaehwa, you--” 

“I don’t need a lecture from you, Jisung,” Jaehwa interrupts him. She stands back from the door to make room for him. “Can you come in? I really don’t want to be seen outside right now.”

“Are you okay?” Jisung asks, following her instructions and stepping inside. He stops beside her for a moment and notices how her eyes are glassy in the reflection of the light, so he changes the way he wanted to approach her. “Do you need anything?”

Jaehwa shrugs. “I guess I need you to help me with this mission because I’m stuck, and I can’t play very well.”

“What mission?”

“That one where you have to kill John Seed when he’s flying about,” Jaehwa tells him. She sighs, leaning back against the wall and looking to Jisung with eyes that are thinking about _more_ than just Far Cry 5. He finds himself worrying a bit too much about her. “It’s harder than I thought and I guess that… I’m not as good as you are at aiming and… _uh_ , yeah. Can I watch you play?”

Jisung rolls his eyes dramatically at her, though heads towards her bedroom without her needing to ask again. “You called me all the way here to finish Far Cry for you, just so you can get the glory of completing it?”

“No,” Jaehwa answers, her quiet voice somewhere behind him. 

“It seems that way,” Jisung tells her. He pushes her door open and sits on her bed, right in the middle, without taking his shoes off. She doesn’t mention it, instead sitting next to him without any emotion on her face. Jisung swallows hard. “Your room is messy. What happened to you always wanting it clean in here?”

Jaehwa hums. “I know it is.”

“Yah!” Jisung narrows his eyes at her, though she doesn’t react. Jaehwa just watches him with an indescribable look on her face. There’s emotion now, but Jisung hasn’t exactly seen it before. “Why are you giving me half assed answers? Why are you treating me like you’re not my best friend? Tell me what happened or I’m leaving.”

“Please don’t leave, Jisung.”

His entire face falters at her soft words. It touches his heart and hits it right where it hurts him. It’s the first time in the past few weeks that Jisung feels bad for ignoring all of her calls and acting like she didn’t matter to him. He sighs, looking away from her briefly, and over to her room which he realises isn’t just _untidy_. There’s things thrown around, a picture frame smashed on the floor. _Oh_.

“Hyunjin broke up with me,” she tells him. Jisung looks back within milliseconds, eyes wide at her words. He feels numb for a moment. “I don’t want to be alone, Jisung. That’s why I wanted you to be here.”

Jisung had waited for her to tell him that they broke up. He had spent days thinking about how he would react to when she finally broke up with Hyunjin, it consumed him sometimes because he longed to find out that there was no Jaehwa and Hyunjin anymore. He would have given anything to hear that, though now he had seen the consequences of that happening he didn’t want it anymore. 

He wanted her to be happy, though his own selfish desire for her to not have anyone _but_ him… that was something he never managed to control. He only stares at her with wide eyes, unsure of how to help her. What was he supposed to say? That he was glad they broke up? That he can make things better for her? 

He expects her to be mad at him for not answering, though that suspicion is gone when a single tear drops from her right eye. She tries to cover it up by rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, but by the time she drops her hands, she’s crying even more. “He told me… He told me that I…”

“It’s okay,” Jisung says, pulling her into his arms. He holds her tight against him, rubbing his hand up and down her back as she starts to cry some more. A few seconds pass of Jisung trying his best to comfort her in the best way he knows. Her crying seems to have subsided, though when she pulls back he realises she was probably crying before he got here, too. He offers a smile. “I’ll stay here tonight and I’ll get us pizza.”

“You’re broke, Jisung,” Jaehwa answers, finding it in her to chuckle at his statement. 

Jisung shakes his head. “Changbin gave me back the twenty he owed me. I’m practically rich at this point. Let me buy you pizza so you stop being sad.”

“I don’t need pizza to stop me being sad.”

“What do you need then?” Jisung questions, cocking his head to the side. 

“Kill John Seed for me,” Jaehwa tells him, gesturing towards the controller that was on the bed. Jisung doesn’t fight with her about it, picking up the controller as he gets himself comfortable, kicking his shoes off and then leaning back against the headboard. He waits for her to do the same - she sits beside him and pulls her covers over the both of them, leaning into Jisung. “Thank you for coming here, Jisung.”

He shakes his head, looking down at her. He moves his arm so it falls around her shoulders but moves it when she looks to his hand. He stumbles over some words to say at first. “It’s nothing. I wanted to come here.”

“If you say so,” Jaehwa answers, brow raised, “we’ll just completely forget that you’ve been ignoring me for the past few weeks.”

“I wasn’t,” Jisung defends, sitting up straighter, mind running through a plan of defense for him. 

Jaehwa hums, turning back to the screen. “ _Mm-hmm._ It’s not as if we haven’t spoken, haven’t seen each other, I had to text Felix to make sure you were okay…”

“You text Felix about me?”

“You could have died.” Jaehwa looks away from Jisung but pushes herself further into his chest, leaning into him and placing her head on his shoulder. He takes one long breath, filling his senses with the scent of jasmine incense, and white tea and grape conditioner she always used. His eyes close for a moment, nostalgia embracing him with open arms. “How else would I have known that your funeral wasn’t going to be in a few days time?”

Jisung laughs at her words, unpausing the game and picking up from where she left it. “I’m _Han_. I don’t get hurt.”

❂❂❂

There was this post that Jisung read when he was about sixteen online, one he never believed to be true. That was mostly because Jisung was a heavy sleeper and usually would fall asleep within ten or so minutes of turning a light off, but also because he’s never actually slept next to someone he loves. 

It was an engagement posts from two social media influences, one of them saying how he didn’t have a good night sleep until he finally got to lay next to his fiancée and sleep with her in his arms. Jisung had blown it off as mushy when he was younger and went back to trying to be a cool guy with no emotions, so he never thought about it again. 

Not until he woke up in the morning, trying to adjust his eyes to the light of a room he hadn't stayed in for a long time, and looked down to see another body beside him, head resting on the bridge between his chest and shoulder. He's not sure if Jaehwa fell asleep like that, or if she knowingly put herself there, but he's reminded of one thing.

_She's so peaceful when she sleeps, she put me at ease too. She reminded me of everything that I loved and everything I was grateful for. She helped me to remember that my dreams aren't always impossible to reach._

He doesn't want to move and is grateful that he hasn't woke up with anything that requires him to. He stares down to Jaehwa, looking over her features with care. No wonder Hyunjin was dating her when he was waking up to this every morning. Jisung would pay to have this again. It is like she calms him down, she makes him forget every worry because the one thing that matters in time is _her_.

A wave of bravery hits him, unexpected bravery at best, and sends his hand to Jaehwa's shoulder to play with her hair. He brushes it from her skin, then runs his fingers through the ends that now rest on the covers behind her. When he feels her move a little, he yanks his hand away with the heavy feeling in his chest of being caught directly in the act. Well, she was single now. But it was still a boundary that he didn't know whether he could cross. He probably shouldn't.

His heart rate calms down a little when all Jaehwa does is turn her head a little, nuzzling closer to Jisung's chest. He feels her arm squeeze him a little tighter and his eyes widen. Was she cuddling him? He lifts the covers to check and is surprised that he missed her entire arm around him. He stares at it for a moment, thoughts rushing through his mind until he realises that _damn_ , Jaehwa is the one cuddling him. Not the other way around. He wasn't doing anything wrong!

His fingers return to her hair, feeling how soft it is against his fingers. When he sees that she's still not moving, he brings his fingers to her face and pushes the hair from around her eyes, watching her closely as he does so. He smiles to himself when all the hair is clear, pushed back so he has a better view. _Jaehwa, did you know how pretty you are? How every time I look at you it's like looking at one of those stars you and Changbin always talk about? The brightest thing in my life, that's what you are_.

Jisung places his hand back down, lightly resting it above her figure, the covers stopping him from actually touching her. His head goes straight back down on the pillow so that he's staring straight up at the ceiling, connecting the dots that are left behind from the ceiling design. This was all a big game of connecting the dots for him. For both him and Jaehwa, actually.

Every moment of them being together, every moment she spent with Hyunjin, every time that something took them apart and brought them back together; they were all leading to an ending that Jisung would have given anything to know. Between the disappearing stars, each night laid a path on a road that Jisung didn't know the end to. He hoped it would be with Jaehwa, that she was the star he would find at the end.

Jaehwa whimpers slightly, a sound Jisung did not expect to hear. He looks down to her as she buries her head in his chest, stretching out her limbs. Jisung panics and decides that it's better to be the one asleep, so lays his head back down and turns it slightly to the side, opening his mouth ever so slightly to mimic sleeping in the best way he can.

"Jisung?" Jaehwa mumbles softly. He can feel her hands lightly touch his chest, weight lifting from ever so slightly. " _Oh--_ "

He feels her retract her hand suddenly as she jumps off the bed before her feet carry her off into another room. He can't contain the smile on his lips at how cute it was. She was nervous about him? _Oh, Na Jaehwa, how have the tables turned!_ He bites down on his bottom lip to stop himself from smiling anymore, continuing his facade that he was still sleeping.

He wished he would have seen her nervous, but he has to forget it when he hears her footsteps enter the room again. She's still for a moment - Jisung would like to think she was looking over his body and wondering how such a cute guy got into her bed and how she was so lucky to have _him_ instead of Hyunjin, but he won't push his luck. Instead, he waits for her to wake him like she used to when he would stay over and sleep on the floor.

"Jisung," she calls gently, fingertips pressing at his shoulder. He has to make it believable, so uses all the times that she told him she had to call him at least twice before he wakes up to his advantage. Her prodding gets more intense as she calls again. "Han Jisung."

He fakes groaning, bringing his hands to his eyes to block out the light. After rubbing a few times, he removes his right hand to look at Jaehwa. She had a jumper on now, hair tied back and face shiny from whatever morning cream she used. He mocks her with a sour tone. " _Na Jaehwa."_

"Get your ass out of my bed," she says, pulling at the black tee he was wearing. 

He closes both of his eyes, hands falling to his side as he lets his body become a deadweight in the bed so she can't move him even a little. He can't help but smile when he remembers what she called him before. He would make her say it again. "Be nice to me and I will move."

"You're the worst, Jisung." 

"Do you want me to move?" Jisung repeats, opening one eye to see her. She still looks tired. _If_ they were dating, and that is a very important _if_ , then he would have grabbed her hand and pulled her to lay beside him again so they could both sleep some more. He takes note of how cute she is when she's grumpy. "Aegyo time."

Jaehwa scoffs, shaking her head. "Aegyo?"

"I can't hear anything cute, Na Jaehwa. I'm staying put."

"Yah, Han Jisung, I will make you wish you were dead.” Jaehwa narrows her eyes at Jisung, making him laugh in response. So _that_ was where Hyunjin got that line from. He waits until Jaehwa gives him what he wanted, and he thinks it was worth it. It made him want to work harder to make her love him. "Jisungie, please get out of my bed. Please do it. For me?"

Jisung huffs at her request, shaking his head. "It's comfortable, but carry on and I might consider."

"Do you want to die?" Jaehwa asks, narrowing her eyes at him. Jisung doesn't answer. He wonders if Jaehwa will leave him alone but her inability to give into _anyone_ means that she grabs her phone and finds a video of Jisung when they were younger doing the gwiyomi song as part of a dare. She shows it to him and his eyes widen. "Get out of my bed Han Jisung or I will share this with everyone on my contacts list and everyone will know Han the indestructible anymore!"

Luckily Jisung knows when to stop when it comes to Jaehwa. He also knows that things between them are just fine, or she wouldn't have brought that damn video up.

❂❂❂

There’s a hint of winter that blows in the wind, signalling the start of the season Jisung has found he loves, but equally hates. It was dark early, the weather was always terrible, and somehow he was always reminded of the times that he would walk home with Jaehwa and end up at her house with her parents cooking him some food and saying that he must be _such_ a great son.

“Everyone know what they’re doing?” Chan asks, directing his question mostly towards Jisung and Jeongin. The pair both nod in agreement, ready to follow him where they needed to go. “Don’t do anything that we haven’t prepared for. Any problems, Jae is on the number he gave out a few weeks ago. Call him and he will sort something out.”

Jisung’s worries for what might happen have started to disappear, meaning that he no longer needed to wait ten minutes to calm his mind and put everything aside. 

It wasn't as if he was scared for a specific reason. He was more worried because when something goes good in his life, something bad usually follows. He has a crush and one of his friends date her. He starts to really think he is indestructible and he suddenly will be able to get hit. He tells Jaehwa he likes her and they don't talk for a while. 

That was... self-inflicted though, he will admit. 

Chan shuts the doors to the van and it drives away with the lights on. He supposes he is _also_ nervous because he is yet to do a job with Chan himself, and with Jeongin too. The trio is a new one which Sungjin had suggested since he felt Jisung could teach Jeongin a thing or two. Jisung wouldn't complain, he knew the pair had his own back. He just didn't know how they acted, which may have been a problem. 

He follows closely as Chan leads them into the building, abandoned from what Minho could tell, apart from the few dealers and occasional _businessmen_ that used the place for whatever they needed. Chan was here for something more than money, some personal things between Younghyun and another group that was a little more... business than they were. 

On the streets, or more specifically when all those _leaders_ come together, they called Chan and the others the _Stray Kids_ for whatever reason, likely because they were all a bunch of talented kids that Chan had pulled in from the street. Chan didn't mention much more than the group being called _The Clan_ , they operated out of somewhere in the south - maybe Gwangju. 

Chan never involved any of them in those matters, until he needed Jeongin to steal some information from a hard drive and needed Jisung to keep lookout. 

They make their way through the building, ending up in one of the dark corridors that leads down to a meeting room. Chan mumbles to them both about something happening in there with Younghyun's girlfriend, that The Clan kidnapped her maybe, and that was the reason they were there. To find her from the pictures they took. Jeongin had suggested they left a digital trail and Younghyun was desperate to find someone. He would take whatever chances he could get. 

"Jisung, stay here," Chan tells him, stopping Jisung by the doorway to a small room that looks like it is filled with a variety of controls. Chan shoves a gun into his hand but places a hand on his shoulder before Jisung can register it. "I don't want that used unless absolutely necessary. You see someone, you tell us, we run. Only you're down and you need it."

Jisung nods, unsure of what else he can do. He looks over the weapon for a moment before tucking it into the waistband of his jeans and taking his post on the of the doorway. He feels exposed, given that the entire room is empty and he's the only one in it. He can hear Jeongin tapping away and Chan taking some pictures, though other than that it's silent. 

_Dead silent._ There's nothing between him and the heart pounding in his chest because holy shit he's got a gun and Chan trusts him enough to give it to him. He's worried, but he's thankful, but he's also unsure when they became that kind of group. They just did robberies. Made some money on the side. Whatever, he shouldn't think of it. 

"Everything okay?" Chan calls.

Jisung turns, seeing Chan poke his head up from the box he was sifting through. He nods, offering the best of smiles that he could given the circumstances. "It's just cold."

"Pussy," Jeongin says, pulling a face at Jisung, "this is why Felix always complains about being on jobs with you."

"I'm just cold. The ceiling is cracked and there's rain coming through here."

"Bit of a pussy," Chan agrees, finding some humour in his words. He pulls some papers from the box and slides them inside the backpack he had been wearing. "Don't worry, Jisung, Changbin usually tells me good things. Says you're entertainment when it's boring."

Jeongin groans, pressing enter on the keyboard a few times. "How can that help us, hyung."

"It will be pretty entertaining when someone kidnaps our dumb asses and we all have to share the same little cell. I'll make sure you have a wonderful time." Jisung turns back to the front and checks the room for any movement. Fortunately, there's nothing but some night birds and the rain. "Why are we doing Younghyun's dirty work? He could do this himself."

Chan doesn't argue. "The three of us were free."

"Doesn't mean we should do it." Jeongin agrees with Jisung, though strikes out some luck with the computer and the point Jisung was trying to make was completely lost. "Okay, what am I looking for?"

There's a moment of pause as Chan looks up to the computer. "Anything of a girl, I guess. Take as much information as you can from pictures, find out who last used this thing and when, anything we can give to help out."

Jeongin sets out working on what he wanted, Chan still shuffling through a variety of papers to get what he wanted, too. Jisung finds it boring on door duty but can't imagine there is anything else he can do. He starts to aimless gaze into blank space with thoughts about anything, everything, Jaehwa and Hyunjin, but a blinking red light catches his thoughts. He stares at it for a moment, confused as to what it might be given that it was the entire way across the room and he could barely see it. 

He steps forward, then again, trying to make it out. He definitely had Chan's attention who is close behind him within a few moments and the pair are walking towards the mysterious looking light with Jeongin unphased. Chan stops Jisung by grabbing his lower arm, stopping the younger from moving forward any further. 

"Did you see any others?" Chan asks, pulling Jisung back with him. 

"No," Jisung tells him, "I didn't even see that one until a second ago. I didn't know it was there."

Chan hums, returning to the room and leaving Jisung at the door. "Can you go any quicker Jeongin?"

"I mean, no. But if you need me to, I can just download a copy of the hard drive and go through it later?" 

"Do that," Chan instructs. He kicks the box back under the desk and slings the bag over his back. "If there are cameras, people already know we're here."

Jisung's eyes widen a little. He looks to the door they came in with worry in his heart, _again_. "You think?"

"It's likely."

Jisung ignores Chan's realism and instead roots for some positivity, chewing the inside of his cheeks as he rests his hand gently on the gun he has tucked away. "I mean, we would probably know they were here too. The floors aren't exactly quiet."

"Let's just get what we need and leave," Chan states, returning to the room, presumably to rush Jeongin as much as he could. Jisung can hear the youngest complaining that he can't make it go any quicker and that it would take another three minutes at least, which Chan isn't so happy with. He comes back to Jisung and his breathing is heavy. "You think you're okay checking down the corridor?"

"Do I have a choice?"

Chan shrugs gently. "You can tell me no and I'll go."

"No, it's fine," Jisung answers, finding some bravery left in him. He fakes a smile that Chan most likely sees straight through, slowly edging towards the exit to the corridor. "I guess I'll shout if there is a problem. If you hear nothing, then I'm fine, or dead."

"Don't say that. It's bad luck."

Jisung rolls his eyes at Chan's statement as he leaves the room and goes into the corridor. He doesn't stop to check first, just walking out into the empty space and looking around with wide eyes. He can't see anything. There's nothing to suggest that he's not alone. It's worse out here than it is in that big room because there's only one way in and another way out. Jisung decides a short walk will be better for him to be less concerned about what waits for them on the otherwise. 

_Three minutes must be up by now, Jeongin._

Jisung is the least bit sure of how long it has actually been since Jeongin gave a time estimate. In all honesty, Jisung was kind of worried that they had been caught and someone would come for them who actually knew how to use a gun. His suspicions were mostly coined by the fact he was picking up on every noise and convincing himself it was a person elsewhere coming straight for him. 

He can hear Jeongin and Chan making some noises so returns to the room, taking the bag from Chan as soon as he returns. He swaps it for the gun, and he feels relieved when Chan takes it back and it's no longer something he has to carry the burden of. He instead has the information, and he knew that wouldn't hurt anyone in _his_ hands. 

They make it as far as the other side the hall when a door on another level is kicked open. Chan freezes as he checks the other two are okay before trying to listen for what it could be. When the sound of boots hitting the floor echo through the darkness, he knows it is very much time to leave. 

He pulls the two youngers with him, heading for the nearest window that they could get out of. Luckily they were only on the first floor so could have quite easily made it down, providing that they found somewhere that had an already smashed window so that they didn't draw too much attention to themselves. 

Chan leads them down another hallway until he sees an open window that leads down onto the roof of a ground floor attachment. He sends Jeongin out the window first, then Jisung, before leaving himself and following them as they ran towards the end of the roof so that they could make their escape. Jisung assumed that Chan had called for Yugyeom to pick them up. He wasn't going to hang around for anyone if not. 

And Jisung _really_ thinks that he's in the clear. 

He can see the lights of the van they came in heading down the deserted back street this building was off of. Jeongin is calling for them to follow him, as he could see a ladder that went down into an alley off the road. Like the originally planned, the three would jump in the van and they would just go from there, forget anything else they needed should they drop it. 

Jisung reaches the ladder after Chan, who gestures for Jisung to follow him as quickly as he can. Jisung's feet are on the ladder and he's about to step down when he meets the eyes of a man in a suit stood in the window they just left out of. Before he has any time to react he feels a burning streak across his arm that catches him off guard. He clenches his teeth as the bullet grazes him, though somewhere within him he doesn't actually cry out in pain like he did want to. 

He waits until Chan has pulled him back to the van to do that.

❂❂❂

“Jisung,” Jaehwa says, surprise flooding her senses at the boy standing on her doorstep. His eyes are wide and the rain that seems to be getting heavier by the minute keeps pouring down on him. His hair is soaked and set down onto his forehead, clothes no better. “Did you not get a ride here?”

Jisung shakes his head, though he mostly ignored the concern in her voice. “I need to tell you something.”

“Do you want to come in and tell me?” Jaehwa asks him. 

“No,” Jisung tells her. He runs his fingers through his hair to push it back and stop the rain water from dripping down his face, though ignores the confused look that Jaehwa gives him. “I need to tell you, _now._ ”

Jaehwa would never have won when Jisung was in the mood to bring up his persistent side, like he always did when they were kids. She debates whether she should argue, though the look in Jisung’s eyes is more than she expected from him. It was serious, she knew the very least. 

“Do you remember Minho’s party when we were, like, sixteen?” Jisung questions, expectant for a nod from Jaehwa. She does exactly that, a few of the images she remembers from the night coming back into her mind. “That asshole kid, uh… Kang Daehi. You know, long black hair, shorter than Changbin, used to walk around like he knew everything?”

Jaehwa nods once more. “I remember Daehi. What about him?”

“He dared me to kiss you during spin the bottle.”

Jisung reminds her of the memory she pushed to the furthest part of her mind, mostly because she remembers drinking at the party and barely remembered anything other than Jisung acting super nervous around her. Actually, now that he mentioned it, she vaguely recalls thinking that he was not a good kisser at all. 

“I hated that kid for everything that he-- it doesn’t matter, but I told you after I kissed you that I liked you, but you didn’t hear me so I never brought it up again. I liked you since way before then! Since you got sat next to me and put up with me annoying you each class. But you never heard me! You never even noticed. You just started dating Hyunjin as soon as he showed any interest in you even though I spent all my life just trying to make you notice me!”

Jisung isn’t angry; he’s more than just angry. The way that he looks at Jaehwa is one of confusion, longing, but most of all, he’s hurt. Jaehwa can’t think of a time she would have noticed that he treated her differently. That he showed _any_ interest in liking her. Or, for that matter, _anyone_. Jisung kept his emotions to himself unless he was shouting about them. 

Jaehwa only watches him with concern. Jisung could scream and shout all he wanted at her, his optimism is as low as it has ever been. He expects her to tell him to leave her, so they wouldn’t talk like before and he would have to disregard every trace of her in his life. But she doesn’t shoot him down like he expected. “I don’t think this is a conversation we should have out here, Jisung.”

He doesn’t wait for her to formally invite him in, instead pushing past her into the hall as soon as she steps back to the door. Jaehwa mumbles to herself how rude he is sometimes, though shuts the door without bringing it up anymore. She turns back to him, after making sure the door was locked, expectant to hear him tell her this _oh so_ important news. 

“Is that all that you have to say?” Jaehwa questions, raising her brows. She crosses her arms over her chest as she waits for Jisung to remove his coat. _Oh,_ so _now_ he had manners. She rolls her eyes as he takes his time, though her stance changes when she notices the wound that goes straight across his upper right arm. “Yah, Jisung, what happened to your arm?”

Jisung ignores her for a moment, looking back to the wound and groaning. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Why not?” 

“Because I’m _Han,_ ” Jisung tells her, “I’m not meant to be the one who gets hurt. Just… it’s nothing. I got hit at the last job. That’s why I’m here.”

Jaehwa hums, stepping forward until she’s beside Jisung. She gently places the tips of her fingers on the area around the wound, being careful not to actually touch the wound itself. “I’m no doctor, but it looks okay. Why do I need to see it?”

“Don’t touch it, it hurts,” Jisung says, pushing Jaehwa from him. He pulls his arm away and places his hand over the wound to make sure she can’t come back to it. He looks to her with annoyance, eyes slightly narrowed as he stares her down. “Yah, you’re so stupid sometimes! I’m not here to ask you to check my wound. I got hurt, Jaehwa! I don’t get hurt. It made me… It made me think about the future and realise that I’m not invincible and one day I might get hurt for real! What will I do then? Die knowing that I never told you everything I felt? I could die!” 

“Don’t talk about you dying,” Jaehwa tells him, turning away to go into her living room. 

Jisung follows close behind, stopping at the door with both of his hands on either side of the frame. He closes his eyes to _try_ and suppress some of the anger surging through him. “This isn’t about me dying! Why won’t you just listen to what I tell you? What’s wrong about you acknowledging that I… I’m in love with you!

“I’m scared, Jisung!” Jaehwa snaps, voice raised higher than Jisung’s whining. His lips are pursed as he watches Jaehwa, who is standing across the room from him, stop pacing slowly and instead turn directly to him with dark eyes. “Do you know how much you mean to me? Do you know how much it hurts me when I think that one day I could lose you and never see you again?”

Jisung scoffs. “Why does that stop you accepting my feelings?”

“Because if I accept how you feel where does that take us? To dating? To us spending all of our time together? To us getting married one day? Han Jisung, you don’t look at the bigger picture! I can’t get any closer to you because if anything happened to you, if you get hurt and you stop being invincible, then what will I do? Cry myself to sleep every night? Wish that I was dead with you?”

“You’re lying to me so I don’t feel shit after you reject me.” Jisung rolls his eyes, shaking his head as he turns away from Jaehwa and leans back against the door frame. He takes a deep breath, not bothering to look in her direction again. “Make me feel like you did actually care about me before you take a gun and shoot me yourself. Don’t be a coward, Jaehwa, you tell me exactly how you feel and you make sure I know that you never gave a shit about me!”

Jaehwa doesn’t answer him. She stares him down, so harsh that even Jisung has to turn back to her to check that she’s still in the room. His entire face has dropped, he looks like he could cry if she gave him the chance too. “You think I don’t care about you?”

“You care about me when it suits you,” Jisung tells her. He barely has any life in his voice as he picks himself up from the frame and takes a few steps towards her. “You came back to me when Hyunjin broke up with you. You cared about me when you had no one to talk to at school. You had me around when no one else was. You care about me out of convenience.”

“So when I saved your ass from that botched job down at that store, that was me not caring? Every time I came to you because you didn’t feel well and I looked after you, every time you stayed here and we would do dumb shit all night, everytime I cried over you, how much I was worried for you, that was me not giving a shit about you, Han Jisung?”

Jisung bites his tongue to stop him arguing back. He didn’t see it that way. He pitied himself too much. “You were dating Hyunjin.”

“Because I had to have someone around to suppress my feelings. It’s the worst thing I’ve done and I hate myself so much for it but I had to, Jisung. I had to date Hyunjin because I really believed that of everyone I knew, he would make me get over _you,_ ” Jaehwa states. She takes a moment to calm down, but a few seconds of keeping eye contact with Jisung sends her to the pits of her emotions once again. “I love you too, stupid!”

“Eh?”

“I love you. _Stupid._ ” 

Jisung is caught off guard by her words. He heard them the first time but he didn’t believe them. The second time seemed even less likely. “Na Jaehwa, if you’re trying to be funny right now…”

“I couldn’t love you because it hurt me too much,” Jaehwa carries on, interrupting him. She looks away for a moment as she feels the corners of her eyes start to sting. “I was so worried about you each time you would text me and tell me what Chan had you doing. I would sit up and wait for you to text me that you made it out okay and it wasn’t… it isn’t good, Jisung. I was so scared of losing you that I would cry all the time and I told myself, for whatever reason, that if I didn’t love you anymore I wouldn’t care if anything happened to you.”

"So you pushed me away?"

Jaehwa scoffs, shaking her head at Jisung. "What did you do? You stopped talking to me and I felt like I did something wrong. How is that fair?"

“You dated Hyunjin to get over me for absolutely no reason!” Jisung snaps, still not processing what Jaehwa had admitted to. He stops a foot or so from her, not daring to go any closer. “You think that is fair? It broke my heart every day to think you were with him and I couldn’t do anything about it but now you’re telling me that…. You love me? _Jaehwa_!”

“What?”

“You love me!”

“Why are you shouting at me!” Jaehwa’s closer to him now, too. He doesn’t know when that happened, but by the time she’s speaking again he is barely an inch away from her and his heart is pounding so fast in his chest that he can barely contain himself. She puts her hand on his chest and pushes at him slightly, barely enough to move him but enough to surely know how much she was affecting him right now. “Why are you so surprised? Hmm? You tell me! Is this not what you wanted me to say, Han Ji-”

Jisung’s senses reach their breaking point and he decides to make another textbook scenario their reality, like everything else that happens around them. 

He leans down to her, though there isn’t all that much difference between them, and presses his lips so gently to her own that it takes him a moment to actually register what the _fuck_ he is doing. When he realises he’s kissing Jaehwa he panics, but it only means that he kisses her harder and makes sure that she knows just how much emotion he’s experiencing right now. 

He feels her hand move to the back of his neck, into the short hairs on the back of his head. He didn’t imagine her lips to be as soft as they were, nor for her to have a distinct taste of strawberries. Though he knows the lip balm she wears so that makes sense, really. He embraces the feeling of her nails running over his scalp for a moment, though the sense that Chan has beaten into him makes him pull away from her with wide eyes and parted lips. 

Jisung begs her not to reject him with the face of a man who has seen his future and would sell his soul to the devil to make sure he got it. He breathes one shaky breath, though Jaehwa’s hand that moves to his left cheek as she never breaks his eye contact makes him wonder whether he would actually _need_ to sell his soul. “I love _you,_ Han Jisung.”

❂❂❂

“Okay,” Jaehwa calls from behind the curtain. Jisung sits up straighter, interest piqued as he sees the curtain move a little. “Don’t judge this. It’s not what I would usually go for.”

Jisung rolls his eyes. “You look hot in anything.”

“Hot?”

“Beautiful,” Jisung corrects, cursing himself for the words Changbin puts in his head. It was his fault that every girl Changbin saw he would mumble how hot she was. “Can you just show me already? I’m bored.”

Jisung isn’t actually that bored. He would have sat here all day but he hopes it will hurry Jaehwa just a little. He was looking forward to leaving this store and going straight to Subway so they could get some food. He shakes his hand through his hair, though his hand drops when the curtain is pulled open and Jaehwa is stood behind it proudly, smile on her lips and one hand on her hip. 

“ _Tada_ ,” Jaehwa says, turning around for him, “I think it is perfect for whatever this event is that Jae has invited you to.”

Jisung is too focused to answer her straight away. He was only told by Jae that there would be a _company dinner_ of the sorts, not that it was a company at all, so he didn’t have much to go off of but he already knew that Jaehwa was perfect. She’d found a longer black dress at the back of a rail with a gold neck trim, spilt up the side, and cold shoulder sleeves. He only knew because she explained it all to him as they found some shoes. 

He didn’t think much of it at first but of course Jaehwa could make anything look amazing. He stutters over his words as he looks over her and remembers all the times he would do this and had to hide how in awe he was of her. He can’t hide his blush, nor does he want to. “He invited _us_.”

“But do you like this?” Jaehwa questions. 

“I love it,” Jisung says. He checks to see if anyone else is around, which luckily they _aren’t_ , and stands quickly to close the distance between the two of them. His hand rests on the curve of her back as he pushes her hair back from her face, tucking the ends behind her ear and then running the back of his finger across her jaw. 

She’s always shy around _him_ now, which he didn’t particularly expect, though he likes it. She looks down from him and turns her head to the side, chuckling a little to herself as she says his name softly to stop him. Jisung ignores it - he has a _lot_ of time he has to make up for and he was going to take every opportunity he could to praise her. 

He kisses her once, only a peck due to the likelihood of someone finding them like that and automatically assuming the worst. In return she kisses his cheek and brings the blush straight back to him. It’s funny how his heart still races whenever she does anything like this to him. “I love _you_.”


End file.
